As evidenced from some upcoming films and the recent Black Panther, Marvel is pushing to diversify their characters. This is great, Black Panther was pretty good and Captain Marvel, although not much is known looks like it’ll offer one hell of a film. With the likes of Ryan Coogler and Taika Waiti who directed Panther and Thor: Ragnarok respectively along with Anna Boden who will direct Captain Marvel alongside Ryan Fleck, Marvel will likely see a diverse array of filmmakers to helm their projects. The long overdue Black Widow has also narrowed down their directors from a potential list of 65 with Cate Shortland as the frontrunner to tackle the project.
It’s definitely a welcomed change to see such diversity in the Marvel’s upcoming projects but it can seem like there’s an overemphasis in regards to this over the films themselves (there’s not to say that Shortland is bad, she is a good director). There seems to be more on the way however aside from just more female characters. Speaking to GameSpot as part of Ant-Man & The Wasp‘s promotional tour, Marvel president Kevin Feige was asked on when fans can expect additional female director announcements. To this Feige responded,”We’ve got announcements that we’ll be making at some point revealing that“.
All these representations are cool no doubt about it, but why on earth is this even a question? It is nice to pick up on these representations in the films just for discussion’s sake but placing them as a factor in the decision making process in regards to producing these films can come off as another SJW agenda. I’ll agree that I’ve discussed this and have praised Marvel for including more character representations but when it comes to making a film, these aspects should be irrelevant in producing a quality film. There isn’t anything wrong with having more representations in the films but having them serve as part of the decision in the film’s production, says a lot about what the filmmakers are really emphasizing here.
Clearly Feige has good intentions and he was honestly asked on the matter but he did say he will be making an announcement. At this point, it’s best to just make the films and talk about (or not) race, gender or sexual orientation later on. Allow the films to do the talking, yes it’s progressive and all but take into account, no matter what race, gender or sexual orientation you are… anyone can make a ‘bad’ film even if the director’s traits coincide with the lead character’s on screen.
Source: GameSpot
